- When we say somebody has hearing loss,
then the technology immediately gets brought into it.
But there is also the skillful daily living.
male narrator: Many forms of hearing loss can be improved
using strategies,
like getting someone's attention before speaking,
turning off background noises,
facing each other while talking,
that improve communication more than any technology
and cost nothing at all.
- Hearing loss is one of those things
that we have to, at some point in time, accept,
and we have to incorporate it into our daily lives.
- Just basic communicative strategies
can solve 95% of the problems.
- For instance, how to initiate a conversation,
how to keep a conversation going.
We have to have direct line of sight.
And that's one of the first things that I learned.
If you're out of sight, you're basically out of earshot,
because people with hearing loss look at a person.
They look at the movement of the lips.
They look at the whole countenance.
They look if what they hear
and what they see kind of coordinates.
It gives them a whole picture.
Then there is also the fact
that we have to have people speak--
not in a loud voice.
Screaming, actually, is totally counterproductive.
- My family and my friends
have learned to talk to me
a little bit louder.
I find that I resent shouting.
- Yelling across the room doesn't work anymore.
Or if I'm downstairs yelling up
and having her toss me something down the stairs,
that doesn't work anymore.
So I just make sure that I'm in the same room.
If she doesn't hear me,
I'll ask if she has her hearing aids in,
and if she doesn't, then I'll move closer
and make sure that I'm looking directly at her.
- It actually hurts my ears if somebody shouts at me,
because it is too loud.
In some ways, it is not the level of sound,
as much as it is the clarity of the speaking.
- And so we have people--
Usually we tell them to speak in a normal voice,
but to annunciate better, you know?
And when we try to annunciate our words a little bit better,
immediately that has a tendency to slow down
the conversation a bit, which is a huge advantage
for people who are trying to listen and to hear.
- I would recommend going
and getting your hearing evaluated,
looking into the different technologies.
And there are lots of technologies.
- A lot of people--they don't want a formal-fit hearing aid.
They just want a simple device they can use with their phone,
like a simple over-the-counter device called a Pocket Talk,
which looks a little bit like a Walkman
with a pair of headphones,
and in which the sound output can be far better
than a $4,000 pair of hearing aids.
narrator: There's also a whole host of products
that don't rely on sound at all--
alarm clocks and fire alarms that vibrate your bed,
as well as kitchen appliances and doorbells
that blink and flash.
- There is technology, and I believe
that when people go for hearing help,
that they actually should be instructed on all of this.
- Once I got used to the hearing aids,
and they're a challenge to get used to sometimes,
life is so much better.
narrator: Hearing aids are actually
like prescription eyeglasses.
They need to be programmed by an audiologist
to match your specific hearing loss.
- Most people have hearing loss from age.
It slowly changed over time.
Wearing a hearing aid is just that--it's an aid.
It helps improve what hearing they have,
helps them pick up
on some of the things that they're missing.
- The fact is that hearing aids these days
are small, invisible.
They work really well
for people with mild to moderate hearing loss,
and they can make an enormous difference
in how you go about your daily life.
Hearing aids these days can easily cost up to $4,000
for a single hearing aid,
and since most hearing loss is from noise or aging,
it tends to be bilateral, in both ears,
so that means you need two hearing aids at $4,000 apiece.
narrator: Hearables,
or personal sound amplification products,
are often confused with hearing aids,
but are actually over-the-counter solutions.
Their quality really varies.
After all, they are usually once size fits all.
But they are much more affordable,
and many people find them helpful.
- There's clearly--Hearing loss comes on slowly over time,
so you don't necessarily need everything all at once.
If I noticed I was beginning to struggle a little bit,
usually in, let's say, group conversations and busy outings--
is that increasingly there a are whole array,
some better than others,
of what I'll call "consumer electronics"
or what people call
"Personal Sound Amplifying Products," PSAPs.
Basically commercial, consumer-grade technology
which don't advertise to treat hearing loss,
because if you do that, then it becomes FDA-regulated,
and then you can't even sell it over the counter anymore.
But these consumer-grade devices
which allow you to hear
in certain challenging situations.
And I'll give an example.
There are a few companies now which make a devices now
which look like little ear buds.
They go into your ear, they have a little neon glow to them.
They have a built-in MP3 player.
They work as a Bluetooth headset for your phone.
And, oh, yeah, by the way,
they can also amplify sound, right?
So is that a hearing aid, or is that a lifestyle device?
You realize there's a lot of convergence
between the two nowadays.
- People are beginning to realize
that accommodations for people with hearing loss
are as important as accommodations
for people in wheelchairs.
narrator: Under the Americans with Disabilities Act,
public venues, like theaters and lecture halls,
are required to provide assistive listening devices.
And if they have a hearing loop,
it can transmit sound wirelessly to the T-coil
in your hardware
without the need to request additional equipment.
- So I walk into a meeting, and there's looping.
Well, I had never turned on my T-coil in six years
because no place was looped.
- Especially the big movie chains
to have either captioning devices in their theaters
or induction loops in their theaters
so that people with hearing loss can go hear a movie
and don't have to limit themselves
to foreign moves with captions.
Hearing loss is, you know, a major category
in the kinds of access
that the ADA requires.
It's not, up until this point, always been followed,
but I think more and more it is.
- It's a spectrum of care, right?
This is not all or none, right?
It's that you add in technology
depending on where your level of hearing loss is
and in terms of how complex it is
and in terms of how much care you need.